


A List

by Kallonimo



Series: Shakarian Quarantine Project [16]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Post-War, no beta we die like jenkins, prompt, shepard is not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24507451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallonimo/pseuds/Kallonimo
Summary: Shepard has list. A list of all the shit she’s seen. It helps her get through the nightmares, where everything inevitably comes back, it let’s her cross off the things one by one, feel like she is working through them instead of them coming to haunt her. This is the list:
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: Shakarian Quarantine Project [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751218
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	A List

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Category: Angst  
> Prompt: Holding everything in doesn’t help you know

Shepard has list. A list of all the shit she’s seen. It helps her get through the nightmares, where everything inevitably comes back, it let’s her cross off the things one by one, feel like she is working through them instead of them coming to haunt her. This is the list:

-

Akuze

She can still hear the screams of her squad, her friends. They have been with her ever since that day. It changed her. The person she was before seems so far removed now. Sometimes Shepard looks back at that younger happier version of herself and wonders how she could ever be so blind to the terrors the universe holds.

\- 

Virmire

Shepard can still see Kaidan’s face. It’s burned into her memory. His voice in one of the louder ones in her nightmares, echoing through the grey forest where time moves way too slow. She finds herself wondering what would have happened if she chose different. If it would have made any impact at all. She wonders how Ashley feels. Shepard knows Survivor’s guilt all to well and she knows that by saving Ashley she brought it onto her too. 

-

Suffocating in space

This is the part of her nightmares where she gets violently yanked into the air. Except there is no air. Shepard floats weightless, struggling to breathe. If she is lucky this is where she wakes up kicking and with a burst of adrenaline. Sometimes she wakes Garrus that way and no matter how many times she tells him to go back to sleep, he refuses to lie back down until he is sure her breathing has slowed and she is ready to sleep herself. She falls back asleep then, holding on to him for dear life.

-

Omega

Nothing is sacred to her nightmares. Especially not her comfort. Because in those nights where she manages to fall asleep again, her face buried in Garrus chest, he is in the dream with her. Except they are back on Omega and she sees the rocket hit his face again and again and again, hears the screams, sees the blood. Even dreaming she knows he survived. She knows he was standing and joking again a few hours later, but in these dreams he never does. In her dreams he dies and Shepard realizes just as she did all those years ago when it happened that she loves him and she needs him. But in her dreams this is where it ends. In her dreams she is alone.

-

The suicide mission

The terrible alternate reality of her dream continues from there. Not only does Garrus die on Omega, but everyone dies at their assault on the collector base. She makes the wrong decisions and it costs her everyone. She knows some of them will be back later, but it only means she will see them die a different way. Shepard knows, from countless dreams before, that she will miss the jump unto the shuttle but she always does it anyway and plunges into the deep.

-

Earth

She lands flat on her belly in the middle of burning Vancouver. Anderson is telling her to run, but at this point Shepard can’t any more. At this stage of the dream she just curls up in a ball and waits for it all to be over. The noise of the Reapers descending rings in her ears. Sometimes this is where she wakes up, it always was for the first few months of the war, but now her dreams continue on.

-

“What are you doing?”

“Making a list.”, Shepard tugs her hair behind her ear. She let it grow out after the war. At first people assumed she wanted to hide the new scars on her face, so she started tying it up at official events. Shepard has no problems with her physical scars, only with the events that led to them. Garrus looks over her shoulder onto the padd she’s typing on. 

“Of people that died?”

“More or less.”

He spends a minute more studying it. “Why is Omega on there?”

“Seeing you take a rocket to the face was a little bit traumatic, honey.”

“Yeah but I survived”, he spreads his arms. “And got a very attractive facial scar out of it.”

He always manages to make her smile. 

“You know you can talk about these things, right? You don’t have to make, what is this, a nightmare checklist.” 

Shepard sighs. Garrus telling her she needs to talk about her trauma has become one of the fixtures in their daily life and she is far from happy about it. “I know I know but I also need this list just...so I can deal with it.”

“Okay then”, Garrus walks around her and hugs her from behind resting his chin on her head. “Go on”

“What?”

“Continue with the list. Just also talk to me about it.”

Shepard sighs again and continues typing.

-  
Mordin

“Not your fault.”

“I know that too, but…”, she has never told him about this, Mordin’s last words, even though they keep ringing in her ears. “He knew he was the only one who could make it right. He walked to his death knowing it was the right thing to do.”

Garrus is quiet for a moment, but she knows he realizes what she means by the way he sucks in his next breath. “You think you should have done the same.”

“Yes”

His grip around her tightens. “You destroyed the Reapers, Shepard. You saved everyone.”

“And I killed EDI and the Geth in the process.”

She doesn’t wait for his response, just continues typing.

-

Thane

“Also not your fault”

“Kai Leng stabbed him right in front of me.” 

“In front of me too. And Liara. None of us could have done anything. And you avenged him.” He moves back to sit in front of her, placing his talons over her hands. “Not everything was your responsibility. Or your fault. I know it felt like it, but it wasn’t. You didn’t make those decisions alone and you didn’t make them in a vacuum. I understand they haunt you, but they are not your fault.” Garrus stops to look down at the list. “Legion is next, right?” 

Shepard let’s out a sad laugh. “No, actually.”

-

The Geth Dreadnaught

Garrus questioningly tilts his head. 

“It reminded me of suffocating.”

“Oh. Oh!”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Shepard shrugs her shoulders. “Time was of the essence. Dealing with my feelings would have slowed us all down.”

“Yeah, but Tali or I could have easily gone instead, why…”, he looks at her. “You know you can be vulnerable, right?”

“I do now.”

“Spirits”, Garrus shakes his head. “You can’t keep pushing everything down like this.”

“I’m digging it all up now”, Shepard protests. 

“Yeah, now, when it’s a mountain. You should have when it was just rocks.”

-

Legion

“There it is”, Garrus declares without any joy. 

“Yeah, there it is.”

“Not your fault.”

“I know.”

-

Thessia

“I could tell”, Garrus murmurs. “When we got back from there. I knew something was wrong.”

“It was...a lot. All those dead Asari, the sound of the Reapers, Liara’s pain. Akuze, Vancouver and Virmire rolled into one.”, Shepard shudders at the memory. 

“Is there anything I could have…”

“No!”, she interrupts him. “You did everything perfect. You were there for me.”

“Yeah”, Garrus lets out a deep breath. “Somehow I feel like I didn’t do enough.”

“Welcome to my life.”

-

The Crucible

“Will you ever tell me what happened up there?”

“I have told you more than anyone else.”

“The only thing you keep saying is that you killed EDI and the Geth.”

“Because I did.”

“Yeah, but you also killed the Reapers.”

“And I shot the Illusive Man”, has she really never told him this?

“Nice one!”

“After he made me shoot Anderson.”

“Oh”

“Yeah”

“Sorry”

“It’s not...don’t…”, she let’s out a sigh of frustration. “It’s just so much. I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to deal with all of this.”

“Shepard, if I know one thing about you. It’s that you can find a way out of everything.” 

She smiles. “Your confidence in me is astounding.”

“It’s based on years of research.”

Shepard can’t help but laugh at that. She pulls Garrus in to kiss him. “Thank you”

“Always a pleasure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
